Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/246

 man of any influence, one Lewis Clifford to wit, who pompously ordered them that they should not presume to come to any formal decision concerning the aforesaid John."

It is uncertain how far the inquiry before Sudbury and Courtenay was allowed to proceed. The Princess and the Duke were not the only bars to its progress. Possibly Wyclif had read his defence, and Courtenay, it may be, relieving the Gallio-like Archbishop of his function, had exchanged a few vigorous words with the accused. His judges were awkwardly placed, and were anything but masters of the situation. The few contemporary references to this dramatic scene unfortunately do not condescend to many details, and the details which they give are not consistent. According to the continuation of Murimuth's history, "the Archbishop imposed silence on him and all other persons, in regard to the matter in question, in the presence of the Duke of Lancaster," this being evidently mentioned as a proof of Sudbury's courage—" forbidding him thenceforth to meddle with or dwell upon the points at issue, or to suffer others," his Poor Priests, for instance, "to spread them abroad. And for a time both he and they kept silence"—which is not very likely,"—but at length, relying on the temporal authorities, they again took up the same opinions, and others which were far worse, and persevered in their mischievous errors."

Then the inevitable citizens, who had tramped across London Bridge, and through the Borough to the Archbishop's chapel, put themselves in evidence